[Security] Rural Unrest: An Outcome of Unmet Dues

Rural
Unrest: An Outcome of Unmet Dues

Peasants
did not disappear. Tribals could not be assimilated with the mainstream
populace. Dalits continue to be the landless hewers of wood and drawers of
water for the upper classes and castes. The projected trajectories of the development
paradigm of large scale withdrawal of surplus labour from

the rural areas to be
absorbed in the massive development of the secondary and tertiary sectors had
gone awry.

Fifty eight
per cent of the Indian labour force is still engaged in agriculture and allied
occupations. Tribals are being pushed up the hills because of illegal incursion
of outsiders in their traditional domain. Dalits continue to swell the ranks of
agricultural proletariat which is increasing in an alarming way. Neo-liberal
development process totally by-passed them. Not only that the invasion of the
corporate sector into agriculture and forestry and enhancement of ceiling
limits on land in some states has exacerbated the incidence of landlessness
with the consequential rise in the free floating mass of rural poor moving
around in search of employment. This has depressing effect on rural wages and has
aggravated casualisation of labour on terms grossly unfavourable to them. This
is supported by different rounds of NSSO data on agricultural wage from 1983 to
2000.

Victims of
development - the project affected people (PAP) - add another unpleasant
dimension to the scenario of rural alienation and turmoil. There is no firm
official figure regarding the total number of PAP rendered landless due to
coercive acquisition of land by the State for "Development Purposes”. Scholars
have made various estimates. The generally accepted figure (calculated by
Walter Fernandez) is that between 1951 and 2005, 50 to 60 million persons were
forcefully evicted from their hearth and home. It is a colossal figure. Among
the PAPs tribals constitute 40 per Cent. The absolute figure would be more than
what is estimated.

It appears
that the main brunt of the adverse effects of development had to be borne by
the tribals who had the least sustaining power. Thus a vast number of
displaced, homeless, landless and jobless tribals are roaming about as flotsam
and jetsam of the cruel development process. They are depressed and dejected,
irritated and angry Tribals did not have any concept of "exclusive title
or possession within community. Ownership was best understood
as mutual respect and recognition of access of an individualor family to a
separate plot of land to be used for
special requirement of the family

Extension
of general laws and their accompanying institutions to the Scheduled Tribal
areas created a hiatus between the "modem" laws and their agencies
and the traditional mode of tribal life and living style. This resulted in a
conflict between the traditional systems and the formal institutions,
especially with regard to the rights of tribal people over land and resources
on which they had subsisted for centuries without formal ownership deed or
title.

Beginning
with the colonial time and continuing in the post colonial era, the intrusion
of formal economy with privileged
individual rights and individual or corporate profit motive has systematically
undermined or subverted. The informal. Communitarian system of the tribals and
their livelihood. This crisis has been further aggravated by the recent influx
of individuals and corporate bodies into the tribal domain and their takeover
of tribal
lands and other natural resourceswhich traditionally gave sustenance to the
tribals.

Tribals
lost their control of traditional livelihood resources through several state
actions.

First is “Forest Reservation Policy” which
declared forests, degradedforests, wastelands on the periphery and even
partly arable ands as “Reserved Forests” where human habitation was
prohibited. These, Reserved Areas sometimes included villages which were allowed
to continue without any right or title and which supplied free or cheap
labour to Forest Department and ) to forest personnel.

Second means of alienation was the leasing
of forest lands to the corporate sector for mining, processing industries,
agro or forest based business, logging and timber felling or for tourism
ventures. Tribals were denied access to pasture lands and forests which
had been providing them means of livelihood.

Thirdly there were the draconian laws related
to Wildlife Protection and National Parks and Sanctuaries which forcefully
excluded all habitations from vast areas notified under these laws.

By a sly of
hand of the forest authorities’ local rightful residents became interlopers or
encroachers on their own lands. The traumatic reversal of the position from
rightful owner occupiers to illegal
encroachers pushed the affected people to desperation to use any means
to vent their resentment. In some places this deep human tragedy was compounded
by the extinction of the species for which such cruel methods were used.

Lastly, as already noted the coercive acquisition
of land for "development" purposes has already displaced about 80
to 90 million tribals turning them into Homeless, Landless, Resource less and
Jobless. It is not surprising; therefore, that Social Unrest has emerged in
the affected areas. It manifests itself in defiance of the authority from
simple form of demanding right of community management of forests to
militancy.

The State
cannot avoid the responsibility of creating conditions in which in sheer desperation
and rage, tribals resorted to violence.

Half way
across the globe in the Chiapas region of southern Mexico indigenous people
declared in 1980---

"We demand absolute respect for our communitarian
self-determination over our lands, over all our natural resources and over
the forms of organization that we wish to give ourselves We are opposed to
have our natural resources plundered in the name of a supposed national
development".

The demands of the Chiapas indigenous people in
Mexico fully represent the aspiration and demands of 80 million tribals of our
country as well.

Our old
national leadership was well aware of it. Way back in 1942 Mahatma Gandhi wrote
in his news journal Harijan (18-01-1942) ---

"The Adivasis are the original inhabitants
whose material position is perhaps; do better than that of Harijans and
who have been victims of neglect on the part of so called high classes. The
Adivasis should have found a special
place in the constructive programme" (Gandhi, M.K. - India of my
Dreams, Navjivan Trust, 1947).

Only
Mahatma could have the moral courage during the freedom struggle to own up that
the society had neglected the Adivasis. It is not therefore strange to find in
the Party Programme of Central Committee (P) of CPI (Maoist) - dated 21.092004,
the observation that---

"The State will ensure various forms
of autonomy to all Adivasi communities for their full fledged development
and execute special policies accordingly".

Common
Property Resources (CPR) where every member of the community had easy access
and usage facility used to be an integral part of the social and economic life
of the village poor, particularly for the landless and land poor households.
Among the landless vast majority belonged to Dalit groups. Some scholarly
studies have pointed out that Dalits are concentrated among the landless
agricultural labourers because under the traditional caste system they were
excluded from ownership of land. Consequently for sheer survival they had to
depend heavily on the CPR.

A study of
seven states in semi-arid areas indicated that CPR accounted for 9 to 26 per
cent of household income of landless and marginal farmers, 91 to 100 per cent
of their fuel wood requirements and 69 to 89 per cent of their grazing needs.

However,
this CPR is getting increasingly scarce through state possession or
privatization including corporatization. In different states corporatizations
are being given huge tracts of so called Wasteland, Degraded forest land and Semi-arable
lands which constituted CPR for the Dalits and the village poor.

This has
badly affected the economic positions of these people.

Neo-liberalism
has put the Dalit and agricultural workers under Triple Jeopardy of Social, Economic
and Political exclusion.

The overall
employment situation in the rural areas is rather bleak. The primary sector
employed roughly 58 per cent of the total labour force. Development of
secondary and tertiary sectors could not absorb the surplus labour from the
primary sector. It is now recognized that in the era of "Jobless Growth"
the organised sector's capacity to absorb surplus labour would remain minimal
to nil. As a result under compulsion of circumstances the vast majority of
additional labour force will have to be absorbed both in the farm and non-farm
segments of the rural economy and in the unorganised segment in the urban areas.

It would
have several adverse consequences.

This large army of landless workers would
tend to depress rural wage rates thereby accentuating poverty as already
mentioned. It would also increase the number tenancies with harsh and
extortionate conditions and terms. Extremely severe forms of exploitation
are noticed in respect of these "invisible" tenancies.

Expropriation
of CPR for handing over the land to corporate sector for agri-business or
industry has caused depeasantization among the farming communities and
accentuated immiserisation of already poor landless and marginal farmers most
of whom belongs to dalit groups.

Active
encouragement of the state for "contract farming" is putting, self employed
autonomous peasants under harsh and often disadvantageous contracts.
Incidentally, the protagonists of this move in the State machinery should do well
to remember that about 90 years ago in 1917, Mahatma Gandhi's first public
action in India after coming from South Africa was to , fight for the cause of
peasants of Champaran in Bihar against unfair terms of contract imposed on them
by the European Indigo planters.

Advocates
of this system should also appreciate that between two unequal partners there
cannot he any fair contract in favour of the weak. Land ceiling laws have been implemented
in a tardy and improper manner in our country. Even distribution was not done,
correctly. In many cases beneficiaries with "patta" in land did not
get physical possession of the land allotted to them. Old owners continued to
possess and enjoy the usufruct of these lands. Worse still are the cases of the
same vested land being distributed to different sets of beneficiaries at different
points of time, of course, giving no physical possession to anyone of them. It
only made the poor to fight the poor so that the erstwhile landlords could lord
over their former estates.

Land
holdings after several decades of implementation of ceiling laws still remain
highly skewed. In 1995 tiny holdings constituted 78 per cent of the total
operational holding and commanded 32 per cent of the area.Thus 22 per cent of
operational holding controlled 68 per cent of the arable land. While figures
clearly justify further reduction of land ceiling and rationalization of
various categories of land for ceiling purposes.

Under the pressure
of neoliberal economic policies different states are doing the opposite by
enhancing the ceiling limits in the name of commercialization and modernization
of agriculture. Thus the possibility of getting a parcel of land by the
landless for minimal livelihood and household food security is becoming dimmer
by the day.

Apparently,
in different' parts of the country' in different depressed and oppressed
groups, there are kegs of dry powder
waiting for fire to set in. But the flaming bush fire is not taking place as there
is a lack of country-wide political mobilization among the landless and the deprived.
Instead of being united on the .basis of class, the poor are fragmented along
caste, ethnic, religious and other divisive lines. Moreover, land struggle tend
to differ for different interest groups. Landless strive for land ownership.
Tribals and indigenous groups strive for the protection of their traditional
righfs on forest and other livelihood resources. Marginal and small farmers
strive not only to retain their land but also to make it more productive and to
acquire and, or, to enhance their political power and influence.

Thus with
disaffection all around there being no coalescing of interests and objectives,
no combined determined movement was possible to seriously threaten the
establishment. In an agrarian economy like India land confers personality to all
individual or a group. It endows social respectability. It is a means of
political empowerment. It is the basic ingredient of a dignified life and
living. Hence a just and fair distribution of land resources is of utmost
importance for building n egalitarian and strife - free society. It is for the
state to arrange for equitable redistribution of hind and water resources and
to restore the traditional livelihood rights of the tribals in the forest
areas. Unmet just demands may provoke the sufferers to use force whether for
occupation of land or for exercising rights over forestry resources. The ruling
establishment cannot avoid taking responsibility for its failure to read the
writing on the wall.

Another
major cause of rural discontent is the trident of malicious governance by the
Forest, Revenue and the Police administration. Rajiv Gandhi pithily described
the situation---

He observed "the experience of the vast
majority of our people at the grassroots have been that, at the interface
between the people and the administration, the administration is
unresponsive, inefficient, unsympathetic, often callous, sometimes even
cruel to those whom they meant to serve".

The situation
is far worse in the tribal areas what we are witnessing in India and some Latin
American countries in the form of rural land movement of violent nature is
basically the "third wave" or left politics. When the agrarian crisis
is becoming more acute, there is a deepening of political vacuum in the country
side.

Traditional
parties of the left which had a rather nebulous relationship with the dispossessed
in the countryside have, by and large, succumbed to the logic of capital either
to obtain power or after obtaining power, eschewing Marxian Left policies,
though many of them still carry the name of Marx in their breast plates. They
are openly and unashamedly promoting neo-liberalism in its crude form discarding
even the fig leaf of egalitarianism not to speak of socialism. The "third
wave" of virulent left politics is the direct result of the traditional left's
subservience to the needs of capital exhibited through their adherence to the
neo-liberal economic reform policies.

The social
base or this new movement which includes the Maoists of India, is the masses of
rural poor fallen by the wayside because of relentless pursuit of, neo-liberal economic
policies. Its leadership is largely confined among the Peasant intellectuals
who have disassociated themselves from the established political parties and
their university based intellectuals. Their tactic is, predominantly direct
action centering round direct physical occupation of land and other natural
resources. Some of them have opted for armed struggle like the CPI (Maoist) in
India, Zapatistas in Mexico and the FARC in Colombia.

Their
strategy is autonomy from the established political parties and the state. This
line is being followed by the rural movement in the Philippines, India
(CPI-Maoist), South Africa, the Zapatistas in Mexico and MST in Brazil. Their
ideology tends to fuse Marxism with the local brand of ethnic or racial
discourses. They are quite sensitive
to gender and ecological issues. In fact there is a conscious effort to
indigenize the Marxian theory to the specific local situation.

Long ago
Mao Zedong propounded' the 'thesis of "Fish in Water".

"Fish"
were rural militants. Disgruntled disaffected and resentful poor peasantry, agricultural
workers, forest dwellers, displaced persons and the like constituted the
"Water". If their disaffection could be removed or substantially
reduced water would evaporate and the fish would be left high and dry and they
would cease to exist eventually. Since almost all the demands and grievances of
the tribals, Dalits, landless agricultural workers and the like could be met
and resolved' within the parameters of the Constitution and existing legal and policy
frame, a responsive and sympathetic political leadership at different levels
can solve the issue of rural unrest if they had the will and if they could
transcend their proximate class interests. The smouldering ember of rural
unrest in India can be doused by proper action undertaken with understanding
and sympathy, dialogue and reasoning. Harsh counter violence might not be the
correct response as it had failed so far during the last four decades since The
Spring of Thunder in 1967.